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The (tax) burden of proof

The Education Tax Policy Institute in Columbus released a new report that says the tax burden in Ohio has shifted significantly since the early 1990s, from businesses onto farmers and homeowners, to the detriment of school districts and local governments. Much hay is being made over this report by the usual suspects, including the alphabet soup of education groups (BASA, OASBO, and OSBA) who commissioned it. Here are a few examples of media coverage the report has garnered:

However, the Middletown Journal-News apparently cares less about schools than it does about Butler County’s roads. Cuts to Ohio’s local government fund really mean less miles of road fixed up.

While this report is interesting and describes changes to the state’s property-tax policy over the years, it doesn’t offer much in the way of takeaways. The shift in the property-tax burden over time is likely borne of necessity, as Ohio works to ensure that its business-tax structure is competitive with that of other states. The implication, though, is that the shift has somehow harmed education funding. Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be true, as school expenditures have increased 22 percent (in real dollars) since 2000.